I recently found out a dear friend’s husband has been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing gruelling rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. I wanted to help.

Like many Jewish mothers, food was the first thing I felt I could offer to support them and their family. The last thing they have time for at the moment is meal prep. But what would be appropriate? Beyond chicken soup — our community’s cure-all — I had no clue.

So when The Living Kitchen by Toronto-based nutritionists Tamara Green and Sarah Grossman landed on my desk, I was all over it. This new book is aimed at cancer patients and those caring for them. It’s full of gorgeous-looking recipes with helpful symbols, showing you the symptoms and side-effects the particular dish will be good for.

Green and Grossman, both 33, met when studying to be nutritionists and founded their practice (also called The Living Kitchen) after seeing their clients attempt to put the nutritional advice into practice. “We saw a gap between the theory and how to apply that, so we started cooking for people and delivering food” explains Green. Growing up, both had seen the effects of cancer and treatment on friends and family. “I lost my grandfather to oesophageal cancer and when she was 10, Sarah’s best friend’s mother died of it.”

Talking to clients, they began to see the wider range of people the disease was affecting. “A very good friend of ours was diagnosed with cancer in her 20s. We took smoothies to her in hospital, which were a great way of hydrating her and giving her vital nutrients but which were easy for her to drink when she had difficulty swallowing. Once she was at home, we’d put soups in her freezer for when she needed them.”

That was in the early stages of their careers. Since 2012, as well as creating recipes for their clients’ various dietary needs, they’ve increasingly focused on helping people undergoing cancer treatment.

“We’ve built up a direct understanding of what worked for some people and what works for others and have amassed a wealth of knowledge and recipes.”

Healthy food is a major component in supporting the immune system. The pair also touch on epigenetics — the study of how your genes affect your health without changing your underlying DNA. “You can’t change your DNA but certain foods can change how your genes express themselves. Your diet may actually have the power to reprogramme your health, despite your genetics”, explains Green. Which has to make what’s on your plate pretty crucial — not just when fighting the Big C but all the time.

If, like me, you’re at a loss for what to cook or are suffering yourself, Green has these tips:

Foods to help nausea:

Staying hydrated is vital when you’re feeling too sick to eat. Drink broths and simple soups or warming ginger tea. Bland foods like crackers and biscuits can help quell feelings of sickness. The coconut biscuits pictured below (recipe on the JC website)  are perfect for this.

Failing taste buds:

Cancer treatments can impact on your senses of taste and smell, on saliva production, and can make food taste metallic, like cardboard or plain bland. Green suggests eating with plastic cutlery if struggling with a metallic taste; rinsing out your mouth with warm salt water before or after meals (unless you have mouth sores) and adding extra herbs and spices to pep up flavours.

“Add lots of flavour with cuisines like Moroccan, Thai, Indian and Middle Eastern.”

Appetisers:

For anyone suffering a loss of appetite, good old Jewish penicillin — organic if possible — is brilliant for hydrating and healing. “You really do need to eat and drink and one of the best ways of getting someone to eat when they don’t feel like it is with bone broths like chicken soup.

“They’re easy to sip on and gentle on the eyes too, which can be important if you don’t feel like eating” says Green, whose recipe was created originally by her great-grandmother. “Chicken soup has an incredible amount of protein, fat and minerals which all work together to strengthen and heal the body”.

Too sweet to eat:

Much as you’d like to bake a babka or serve up a strudel, refined sugar is unhelpful to compromised immune systems. “Stay away from refined sugar and carbohydrates” warns Green.

“A few carbs are ok, but make sure they are made with wholegrain flours like coconut or nut flours. I love our tahini cookies. Tahini is rich in calcium and has a lot of good fats.”

Rainbow run:

We all know about “eating the rainbow” and it’s especially vital during cancer treatment. This is to ensure you get a variety of phytonutrients — the plant compounds that have major protective properties and give plants their colour, taste and smell. Some of the best foods to eat for a range of phytonutrients are blueberries; grapes; turmeric; cruciferous vegetables and green tea — there’s an extensive list in the book.

“Phytonutrients have potent anticancer properties that work in unique ways to decrease abnormal cell growth, inhibit the spread of cancer cells and promote cancer cell death.”

This ties in the epigenetics research as, Green explains, the nutrients in many of these foods are thought to reverse abnormal gene activations.

One great idea Green suggests are smoothie packs: resealable bags packed with weighed, chopped fresh produce plus the dry ingredients for smoothies.

They can be popped in my friend’s freezer then defrosted and blitzed when needed. A perfect package of phytonutrients.

The Living Kitchen, Robinson £18.99